Director Anshuman Jha describes “Lord Curzon ki Haveli” as a black comedy homage to Hitchcock’s “Rope.” It marks his directorial debut, premiering at London’s Regent Street Cinema for the UK Asian Film Festival’s closing. Given the prestigious history of the cinema as the first venue to screen a motion picture in the UK, it’s natural that my expectations with Lord Curzon were high.
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The film kicks off with a picturesque scene of Yorkshire’s countryside, where British sheep graze peacefully. Inside what appears to be a cosy cottage, Sanya (Zoha Rahman) descends a staircase in a striking red dress, discussing dinner plans with Rohit (Arjun Mathur) before guests arrive. Their interaction, teetering between eerie and flirtatious, suggests the filmmakers probably aimed for a Bonnie and Clyde dynamic to depict them as antagonists. However, their mysterious aura doesn’t immediately hit home. Even a steamy make-out session, hinting at their potential recklessness, fails to fully define their characters. But with just five minutes into the film, there’s still ample opportunity for redemption. Or so I hoped.
Sanya’s friend Ira (Rasika Dugal) and her husband Dr. Basuki Nath (Paresh Pahuja) arrive for dinner, bringing with them an air of awkwardness that permeates not only the characters but also the audience watching them. As Sanya rushed to answer the door, she hastily threw on clothes but forgot to put on trousers. Basuki gave her a strange look at first, but then it was casually overlooked, as if her choice to go trouser-less throughout the film was perfectly normal. While there’s absolutely nothing wrong with whatever a character chooses or doesn’t choose to wear, it should always align with a film’s plot. I spent the entire film waiting for it to make sense. It never did!
Moving on, their conversations veer towards orange juice, alcohol, and Basuki’s curiosity, piqued by a seemingly mysterious trunk in the living room.
I take pride in my aesthetic sensibility, evident from the presence of a similar but smaller trunk at my London home, that we use as a coffee table, but one which has never raised any questions. However, in the film, Basuki’s immediate curiosity about the trunk seems disproportionate, bordering on obsession. When Rohit jokes about a potential ‘dead body’ inside, Basuki’s fixation escalates to alarming levels.
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As the film progresses, we learn that he embodies the archetype of an unsupportive husband and stifles his wife’s aspirations at every turn. Ira is prohibited from social drinking, lacks his affection, and when she innocently encounters a certain Lord Curzon at a neighbourhood pub for lunch, Basuki — who is oblivious to the mysterious lord’s identity — misconstrues the encounter as infidelity. He is also prejudiced against his own people, believing immigrants can’t ever fully integrate into British life.
Halfway into the film, it’s disclosed that Ira had befriended Sanya while visiting the pub where the latter worked part-time while also pursuing her acting career. Disappointingly, the film never touches upon Sanya’s first meeting with Rohit. Was Sanya recruited by Rohit? Did they happen to meet at the same pub where everyone seems to hang out because there are no other options in Yorkshire? Questions that remain unanswered.
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Tensions escalate as Basuki becomes more obsessed with the trunk. Convinced he can hear noises from within, he loses his cool when Rohit jokingly mentions Lord Curzon being inside. Basuki ends up restraining Rohit and Sanya to a sofa and hitting Rohit with a vase. Surprisingly, there are no consequences for his violent actions at a dinner party where he’s a guest.
Now here’s the issue: Basuki is undeniably unlikable, but so are the others. Despite Ira’s struggles of being a patriarchal racist’s wife, I found it hard to connect with her. It might have been okay if Basuki was just paranoid or foolish, but his prejudice against immigrants and his controlling, patriarchal behaviour make him unsympathetic. While unlikable characters aren’t always a problem, for the story to truly hit home, there should at least be one character the audience can empathise with.
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Jha admirably tries to pay homage to multiple Hitchcock films, but the effort falls short due to the inclusion of disparate South Asian themes lacking cohesion. Rather than centring on a singular point, the film amalgamates elements from three Hitchcock classics paired with various identity issues resulting in a disjointed narrative.
There’s a recurrent tendency in independent South Asian cinema to tackle numerous simultaneous themes which hinder thorough plot development. Within a runtime of just one hour and 40 minutes, the director touches upon racism, immigration, patriarchy, gender inequality, career failure, hypocrisy, symbolism associated with the historical figure of Lord Curzon (former viceroy of pre-partition India) and feminine rage, leaving minimal space for complete character development or narrative progression. While exploring themes of identity is perfectly fine, it shouldn’t come at the cost of a film’s coherence and structure.
As for the translation of “Lord Curzon ki Haveli” which means “Lord Curzon’s Manor”, the film’s setting bore little resemblance to a manor. It more closely resembled an Airbnb cottage or, at most, a “summer home” as depicted in the film. While creative licence and budget constraints are understandable, if the aim was to showcase a manor, filming in a manor-like location would have been much more appropriate.
In another ‘surprising’ twist, it’s revealed that the “haveli” actually belongs to Lord Curzon, whose actual name is Henry Curzon — the same individual who denied Rohit’s visa extension for work in the “National Health System”. As a Brit, I couldn’t help but cringe at the misnomer, feeling inclined to clarify that it’s the National Health Service (though I am not sure if the error was intentional).
This suggests that Rohit might be an undocumented immigrant in the UK. The coincidence of Lord Curzon being a regular at the pub where Sanya worked as a waitress, and also being the Home Office worker who denied Rohit’s visa, especially when we lack information on how Sanya and Rohit met, feels overly convenient.
The ending is unfortunately just as lacklustre, reflecting the film’s overall tone, with the actors’ facial expressions falling short of conveying the scene’s intended emotions. I had anticipated great things from the film but, unfortunately, it didn’t live up to my expectations. “Lord Curzon ki Haveli” may have marked the end of the 2024 UK Asian Film Festival, but sadly it didn’t end on a high note. It seems both the opening and closing films shared a commonality — they both failed to impress.
